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RELIGION  AND 
COMMON  SENSE 

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tibvavy  of  Che  trheolocjiccd  Seminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


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PRESENTED  BY 

Roberta 

BR    123    .H36    1918 

Alitl'   ?o?ald  wiHiam 
Alers,    1884-1916 

Religion  and  common  sense 


RELIGION  AND  COMMON  SENSE 


RELIGION  AND 
COMMON  SENSE 


BY 


DONALD  HANKEY 

AUTHOR  OF  "A  STUDENT  IN  ARMS" 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 
I9I8 


Copyright,  191 8 
By  E.  P.  DDTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


printed  I n  the  United  States  of  Hmeriea 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

WHEN  Donald  Hankey  wrote 
these  critical  "notes"  he  had 
nothing  more  ambitious  in  his  mind 
than  their  publication  as  a  review  in 
a  friendly  periodical.  Various  reasons 
prevented  them  seeing  the  light  by 
that  medium,  and  as  his  friends  know 
that  he  believed  his  notes  might  help 
others  who  were  suffering  from  the 
assaults  of  cheap  rationalism  upon 
their  faith,  as  he  himself  had  suf- 
fered, they  think  it  a  duty  to  make 
them  available  for  the  readers  whom 
he  had  in  his  mind. 

Such  an  explanation  is  necessary, 


Editor's  Preface 

since  it  will  readily  be  discovered  that 
the  little  booklet  has  no  pretensions 
to  be,  even  in  outline,  a  complete 
Christian  apologetic.  It  is  not  for 
scholars,  clerical  or  lay.  It  is  designed 
for  the  plain  man,  working  class  or 
other,  without  specialised  knowledge, 
the  natural  prey  of  rationalist  writers 
and  speakers,  who  falls  an  easy  victim 
to  arguments  of  unbelief  which  have 
no  real  value  and  are  often  easily 
demonstrated  to  be  false.  The  most 
familiar  of  these  arguments  are  here 
dealt  with  in  a  very  simple  way,  that 
the  prey  may  at  least  be  able  to  put 
up  a  defence. 

The  chapters  were  offered  for  se- 
rial publication  to  one  of  the  newest 
of  our  religious  periodicals  with  the 
original  aims  of  which  Donald  was  in 
sympathy.  When  it  became  clear 
that  publication  in  that  paper  was 

vi 


Editor's  Preface 

not  intended,  he  tried  to  get  the 
chapters  back  and  was  much  dis- 
turbed by  not  succeeding.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  he  meant  to  revise  the  whole, 
perhaps  to  remodel  and  extend  it 
and  publish  in  a  more  ambitious  form. 
Three  months  after  his  death  the 
MS.  was  returned  to  his  literary 
executor. 

The  original  MS.  has  been  care- 
fully revised  by  a  sympathetic  hand; 
alterations  have  been  made  where 
necessary,  and  in  several  cases  a  line 
or  two  added  to  make  the  meaning 
more  clear.  This  Preface  has  been 
written  to  warn  off  those  who  might 
from  the  title  be  led  to  expect  a 
weightier  work. 

A.  M. 


vn 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Author's  Preface  i 

II.  Miracles,    or    Where    to    Look 

for  God 6 

III.  The  Value  of  the  Old  Testa- 

ment    ii 

IV.  The  Value  of  the  New  Testa- 

ment     22 

V.  The  Freedom  of  Jesus,  or  God 

Found 33 

VI.  The  Living  Jesus,  Our  Lord    .      42 

VII.  Notes    on    Comparative    Myth- 
ology   47 

VIII.  Comparative    Mythology    (con- 
tinued)         57 

IX.  Comparative  Mythology:  Final 

Remarks 68 

X.  Evolution  and  Atonement        .      78 


IX 


RELIGION  AND  COMMON 
SENSE 


author's  preface 

IN  one  of  the  early  numbers  of 
a  recently  published  religious 
weekly  I  saw  a  full  column  ad- 
vertisement of  a  book  called  The 
Churches  and  Modern  Thought.  The 
title  took  me  back  some  seven  years, 
to  when  I  first  came  across  it;  and 
I  remembered  how  the  venerable 
priest  to  whom  I  spoke  of  it  told  me 
to  pray  for  faith;  and  the  university 
don   marvelled   that   such   a   stupid 

I 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

book  could  upset  anyone;  and  how 
in  spite  of  their  remarks  I  remained 
for  long  very  much  upset  indeed. 
And  then  I  wondered  how  many 
readers  of  the  book  to-day  could 
read  it  without  being  as  upset  as  I 
was.  And  so  I  determined  to  read  it 
again,  and  write  some  notes  by  way 
of  reply  to  its  general  arguments. 

My  second  reading  found  it  a 
thoroughly  unfair  book,  as  so  many 
books  of  the  same  class  are,  because 
it  treats  of  all  sorts  of  subjects  of 
which  the  average  man  is  entirely 
ignorant,  and  on  which  he  is  therefore 
unfitted  to  form  a  sound  conclusion. 
It  takes  the  average  man  out  of  his 
depth,  and  then  hits  him  over  the 
head  with  "authorities,"  and  drowns 
him. 

Yet  such  books  would  not  be 
dangerous  if  we  had  a  clearer  idea  of 

2 


Author's  Preface 

what  we  believe,  and  why  we  believe 
it.  It  is  our  vagueness — often  due 
to  our  laziness — which  makes  us  so 
feeble  and  so  easily  upset.  We  have 
no  clear,  sharp  ideas  about  the  faith. 
We  say  one  thing  when  we  know 
that  a  scientist  is  listening,  and  some- 
thing quite  different  when  we  are  safe 
in  the  middle  of  a  clergy  school.  We 
do  not  dare  encourage  people  to  think, 
and  be  strong  and  intelligent  in  their 
faith ;  instead,  we  try  to  attach  them 
to  the  Church  by  giving  them  cheap 
billiards,  or  small  positions  of  re- 
sponsibility. 

The  sort  of  answer  that  this  kind 
of  book  requires  is  simple  teaching  of 
the  truths  that  matter,  which  make 
a  difference  to  one's  life.  It  is  no 
good  answering  such  a  book  word 
for  word.  However  inaccurate  and 
dishonest  it  may  be,  the  average  man 

3 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

is  not  going  to  be  able  to  sift  the  evi- 
dence, or  to  judge  between  the  rival 
authorities.  What  does  he  know  of 
"higher  criticism"  or  "comparative 
mythology''?  And  if  it  is  necessary 
that  he  should,  in  order  to  be  able  to 
retain  his  faith,  be  something  of  an 
expert  in  such  matters,  it  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  Christianity  had  not 
long  to  live.  But  it  is  not  necessary. 
The  sting  of  such  books  is  made 
dangerous  by  the  fact  that  the 
Church  so  often  teaches  what  is  not 
true  to  her  children.  If  Christians 
were  taught  the  real  faith — the  faith 
which  is  able  to  make  them  free — 
such  a  book  would  have  no  power  to 
harm  them. 

In  the  following  chapters  I  shall 
not  so  much  attempt  to  answer  the 
arguments  of  a  particular  book  as 
to  deal  with  the  type  of  "critical" 

4 


Author's  Preface 

unbelief  which  it  represents,  and  to 
show  that,  when  once  one  has  under- 
stood the  real  basis  and  nature  of 
Christianity,  such  books  are  seen  to 
be  mostly  beside  the  point.  In  effect 
their  object  will  be  to  try  and  indicate 
what  Christianity  really  is,  by  con- 
trast to  what  such  writers  as  the  au- 
thor of  that  book  think  it  is. 


II 


MIRACLES,   OR  WHERE  TO   LOOK 
FOR  GOD 

THE  materialist  has  got  it  firmly 
fixed  in  his  mind  that  nature  is 
an  unintelligent,  aimless,  conscience- 
less process,  going  on  from  eternity 
to  eternity  in  obedience  to  blind,  re- 
morseless laws.  Consequently,  if  you 
speak  to  him  of  God,  he  immediately 
demands  to  be  shown  some  "inter- 
ference" with  nature,  which  he  agrees 
would  prove  the  existence  of  some 
power  besides  the  driving  power  of 
nature. 

He  knows,  for  instance,  that  five 
6 


Miracles 

loaves  cannot,  according  to  "natural 
law,"  fill  five  thousand  stomachs  and 
twelve  baskets;  and  he  will  admit 
that  if  you  can  prove  to  him  that 
Jesus  performed  such  a  miracle,  that 
is  a  sign  of  the  existence  of  divine 
power.  "But,"  he  will  add,  "I  know 
quite  well  that  you  can  prove  nothing 
of  the  kind;  because  no  nineteen- 
hundred-year-old  evidence  is  going 
to  convince  me  of  anything  of  that 
sort" 

This  is  unanswerable.  It  is  no 
good  arguing.  But  the  fallacy  is  that 
it  is  in  the  miraculous  that  one  must 
look  for  God.  Jesus  Himself  con- 
demned the  people  who  demanded  a 
"sign,"  and  refused  to  give  one.  He 
taught  that  it  was  not  outside  nature, 
but  in  nature,  and  especially  in  the 
conscience  and  ideals  of  men,  that 
one  must  look  for  the  tracks  of  God. 

7 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

"The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within 
you." 

The  miracles  of  the  Bible  cannot 
be  proved,  simply  because  they  are 
miracles.  The  miracles  that  Jesus 
is  said  to  have  performed  do  not 
prove  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God. 
Rather,  if  they  are  believed  at  all, 
it  is  the  fact  that  we  believe  Jesus 
to  have  been  the  Son  of  God  that 
makes  it  possible  to  believe  them. 
They  are  only  credible  in  so  far  as 
they  are  felt  to  fit  in  with  our  picture 
of  Jesus. 

Where  we  do  find  evidence  of  God 
is  in  man,  and  in  human  history. 
Again  and  again  in  the  course  of 
these  chapters  we  shall  have  to  insist 
that  it  is  in  man  that  we  have  the 
compelling  evidence  of  God.  Because 
men  have  souls,  they  cannot  have 
sprung  from  a  soulless  nature,  and 

8 


Miracles 

by  "soul"  we  mean  the  power  to  think, 

to  reason,  to  select,  to  plan,  to  love, 

to  act  disinterestedly,  etc. 

i 
"Am  I  an  atom  in  a  soulless  scheme, 
My  body  real,  but  my  soul  a  dream? 
Ah  yes,  ah  yes !  But  how  explain  the  birth 
Of  dreams  of  soul  upon  a  soulless  earth  ?'' 

Writers  who  deny  the  existence  of 
God  are  therefore  obliged  to  call 
the  soul  an  illusion.  It  is  because 
this  is  such  a  poor  solution  of  the 
difficulty  that  we  are  obliged  to 
believe  in  God,  and  to  see  in  the 
human  soul  the  evidence  of  the  di- 
vine. 

It  is  in  the  unique  history,  and  the 
unique  religious  ideas  reflected  in  the 
Old  Testament,  and  in  the  picture  of 
a  free,  human  personality  which  we 
get  in  the  New  Testament  that  we  see 
most  clearly  the  evidence  of  God's 

9 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

existence  and  care  for  us.  The 
miracles  may  come  to  be  understood 
and  appreciated  later.  At  all  events 
they  are  of  quite  secondary  impor- 
tance. 


10 


Ill 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  OLD 
TESTAMENT 

OUR  modern  unbeliever  thinks 
nothing  of  the  Old  Testament, 
because  the  higher  critics  tell  him 
that  Deuteronomy  was  not  written 
by  Moses,  and  the  geologists  tell  him 
that  the  world  was  not  made  in  six 
days,  and  the  anthropologists  tell 
him  that  the  story  of  Jonah  and  the 
whale  is  closely  allied  to  the  Solar 
Myth. 

But  of  course  that  is  to  miss  the 
whole  point  of  the  Old  Testament, 
which  is  that  it  is  the  literature  of  a 

II 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

real  people  with  a  unique  religion, 
whose  story,  when  read  with  the  as- 
sistance of  the  higher  critics,  almost 
amounts  to  a  proof  of  the  providen- 
tial ordering  of  history.  Of  course, 
all  of  the  events  recorded  there  do  not 
fit  into  our  conception  of  how  things 
should  be.  It  is  easy — and  foolish, 
although  common — for  unbelievers  to 
ask,  "Is  it  likely  that  a  good  God, 
etc.  ?"  but  it  is  no  argument.  And  if 
it  cannot  be  maintained  that  any  of 
us  have  a  right  to  beg  the  question 
in  that  style,  we  are  no  better  than 
petulant  children  if  we  refuse  the 
knowledge  of  Himself  that  God  does 
give  us,  because  it  is  incomplete,  and 
does  not  come  in  the  exact  form 
that  we  should  like.  The  fact  that 
such  writers  and  speakers  think  that, 
if  there  is  a  good  God  He  must 
be  a  bungler,   only   emphasises  the 

12 


Value  of  the  Old  Testament 

intellectual  vanity  that  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  their  thinking.  "God 
is  in  heaven,  and  thou  upon  earth; 
therefore  let  thy  words  be  few." 
That  is  Jewish,  but  the  profoundest 
wisdom  of  the  world  cannot  go 
beyond  it. 

Before  the  rise  of  Christianity 
there  was  one  religion  in  the  Roman 
Empire  which  was  unique;  it  was 
Judaism.  Judaism  was  unique  in  the 
following  particulars: 

It  preached  One  God,  denied  the 
existence  of  all  others,  and  refused  to 
regard  them  with  tolerance. 

It  had  no  images  of  God. 

It  had  no  mythology  of  minor 
deities. 

It  commended  justice  and  purity 
and  mercy  as  the  surest  way  of  gain- 
ing God's  favour. 

To  say  the  least,  it  is  remarkable 

13 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

that  of  all  the  nations  in  the  Empire 
which  had  religions  of  their  own, 
this  little  Semitic  tribe  should  be  the 
only  one  to  have  a  faith  so  free  from 
superstition,  and  so  ethically  sound. 
It  was  Renan  who  said  that  the  Jews 
had  "a  genius  for  religion";  it  is  cer- 
tainly interesting  to  ask  how  they  got 
this  unique  religion. 

They  did  not  get  it  all  in  a  moment. 
It  evolved  from  very  primitive  con- 
ceptions in  the  course  of  a  chequered 
history  which  wras,  however,  very 
much  like  that  of  their  neighbours. 
The  history  of  this  evolution  is  given 
in  the  Old  Testament,  as  read  by  the 
critics. 

Moses,  according  to  our  typical 
critic,  is  not  a  historical  character; 
but,  be  that  as  it  may,  some  fellow, 
wrho  lived  about  the  time  that  he  is 
said  to  have  lived,  persuaded  some 

14 


Value  of  the  Old  Testament 

desert  tribes  of  Semitic  stock  to  com- 
bine under  the  rule  of  a  God  named 
Jehovah,  or  "Yaveh"  as  the  moderns 
spell  it,  and  to  invade  Canaan.  At 
that  time  the  Israelites — for  so  the 
tribes  were  called — were  probably 
not  monotheists.  They  believed  in 
Yaveh,  just  as  the  Moabites  believed 
in  Chemosh  and  the  Ammonites  in 
Moloch,  as  their  own  national  God, 
but  not  as  the  God  of  all  mankind 
(cf.  Judg.  xi.  24).  But  already  there 
was  a  difference  between  the  relations 
of  the  Israelites  to  Yaveh,  and  those 
of  other  tribes  to  their  gods — a  differ- 
ence that  was  destined  to  have  the 
most  far-reaching  effects. 

In  the  case  of  the  ordinary  Semitic 
tribe,  the  relations  between  them  and 
their  god  were  mutually  advanta- 
geous. The  god  was  either  thought  of 
as  bound  to  the  tribe  by  blood  ties,  or 

15 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

else  limited  to  a  certain  area  of 
ground,  which  they  occupied.  In  the 
former  case  the  god  could  not  be  the 
god  of  any  other  nation,  and  in  the 
latter  he  could  not  be  the  god  of  any 
other  place.  In  both  cases  he  was  de- 
pendent on  the  tribe  for  honour  and 
worship  and  gifts.  But  Yaveh  was 
not  bound  to  the  Israelites  by  any 
tie  but  His  own  free  will.  He  had 
chosen  them;  they  had  not  chosen 
Him.  They  were  dependent  on  Him, 
but  He  was  not  dependent  on 
them.  Moreover,  Yaveh  did  not  de- 
mand sacrifice  as  the  condition  of 
His  favour  so  much  as  sole  loyalty 
to  Himself,  and  mutual  loyalty  and 
justice  among  the  members  of  His 
chosen  people.  The  two  great 
offences  were  to  sacrifice  to  other 
gods,  and  to  betray  a  brother 
Israelite. 

16 


Value  of  the  Old  Testament 

It  is  true  that  after  their  arrival 
in  Canaan  the  Israelites  borrowed  a 
good  many  ideas  from  the  other 
Semitic  peoples  already  established 
there,  and  that  Solomon  and  the  kings 
of  Samaria  especially  were  guilty  of 
worshipping  Yaveh  just  as  if  He 
were  one  of  the  many  other  gods; 
but  a  continual  stream  of  prophets 
denounced  this  tendency,  and  kept 
alive  the  ancient  "Mosaic"  tradition 
that  Yaveh  was  "a  jealous  God,"  and 
that  He  demanded  "mercy  and  not 
sacrifice"  (see  especially  Amos  v.  20- 
26  and  Jer.  vii.  22  and  23). 

By  the  time  of  Isaiah  the  difference 
between  Yaveh  and  other  gods  had 
become  so  evident  to  the  prophets 
that  they  proclaimed  Him  the  God 
of  all  the  world,  the  only  true  God. 
They  spoke  of  Him  as  controlling 
the  destinies  of  other  nations  besides 

17 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

the  Israelites,  as  when  Isaiah  cries, 
"Ho  Assyrian,  rod  of  mine  anger" 
(x.  5).  The  "jealousy"  of  Yaveh 
had  led  to  monotheism ! 

When  the  Israelites,  among  other 
tribes,  were  deported  by  the  Assyri- 
ans and  Babylonians  to  other  coun- 
tries, some  of  them  were  monotheists, 
and  some  were  not.  Those  who  were 
not,  admitted  that  Yaveh  had  proved 
less  powerful  than  they  had  hoped, 
and  proceeded  to  worship  the  gods 
of  their  place  of  exile.  They  became 
"the  lost  tribes."  Those  who  were 
monotheists,  and  believed  that  they 
alone  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
were  worshippers  of  the  one  true 
God,  were  convinced  that  they  still 
had  a  mighty  future  before  them,  and 
survived  to  return  to  Jerusalem,  and 
kept  their  distinct  nationality  (cf.  2 
Kings  xvii.  27). 

18 


Value  of  the  Old  Testament 

The  monotheistic  character  of 
Judaism  was  therefore  fully  and 
finally  established  by  the  time  of  the 
restoration,  and  in  the  years  of 
trouble  which  followed  led  the  Jews 
to  be  intensely  exclusive  in  their  rela- 
tions with  other  peoples.  No  religion 
is  so  free  from  foreign  influences  as 
the  Jewish.  It  remained  unique 
among  the  religions  of  the  world,  be- 
cause the  Jews  were  so  convinced  of 
its  rational  and  moral  superiority  to 
all  others.  And  so  the  way  was  paved 
for  Christianity,  a  religion  no  less 
unique;  but  with  a  far  wider  appeal, 
far  more  true  to  the  facts  of 
life. 

This  history,  showing  how  the 
"jealousy"  of  Yaveh  led  to  the 
doctrine  of  monotheism,  and  how 
the  mutual  loyalty  that  Yaveh  de- 
manded  from  the  members  of  His 

19 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

chosen  people  blossomed  into  the 
doctrine  of  the  brotherhood  of  men 
under  the  fatherhood  of  God  is  ex- 
traordinarily interesting.  Our  mod- 
ern unbeliever  sees  in  it  an  entertain- 
ing illustration  of  the  power  of  he- 
redity and  environment  to  create  illu- 
sions in  the  human  brain.  People 
with  less  certainty  of  their  wisdom 
will  see  in  it  an  illustration  of  the 
revelation  of  God  in  history. 

In  the  course  of  this  amazing 
evolution  the  Old  Testament  was  pro- 
duced; and  although  the  ordinary 
reader  will  not,  perhaps,  be  able  to 
appreciate  without  help  its  historical 
significance,  he  will,  as  he  learns  his 
way  about  it,  find  it  an  inexhaustible 
store  of  inspiration  and  comfort  in 
the  troubles  of  life.  There  is  much  in 
it  which  is  in  conflict  with  the  highest 
teaching  of  to-day,  and  not  a  little  of 

20 


Value  of  the  Old  Testament 

it  that  for  the  ordinary  reader  is 
without  edification ;  but  the  man  who 
reads  it,  and  marks  it  with  a  pencil, 
will  soon  discover  the  riches  that  it 
contains. 


21 


IV 

THE  VALUE   OF   THE   NEW 
TESTAMENT 

THE  man  who  missed  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  Old  Testament 
naturally  misses  the  meaning  and 
value  of  the  New  Testament.  He 
thinks  nothing  of  the  Gospels  because 
of  the  miracles.  He  thinks  that  we 
know  very  little  about  Jesus,  and  that 
it  is  even  arguable  that  there  never 
was  such  a  person.  The  Gospels  were 
written  such  a  long  time  after  the 
events  which  they  profess  to  describe, 
and  contain  so  many  suspicious  fea- 
tures, that  they  cannot  be  relied  on. 

09 


Value  of  the  New  Testament 

St  Paul  very  likely  wrote  none  of  the 
Epistles  attributed  to  him,  and  even  if 
he  did,  he  betrays  an  amazing  igno- 
rance of  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Jesus,  as  recorded  in  the  Gospels. 
And  so  on  and  so  forth ! 

Now  in  dealing  with  these  startling 
assertions  we  must  be  quite  clear 
what  it  is  that  we  want  to  get  out  of 
the  New  Testament.  We  have  al- 
ready referred  briefly  to  the  miracles. 
They  are  not  of  quite  the  first  impor- 
tance that  unbelieving  writers  think 
them.  What  we  require  from  the 
Gospels  is  a  picture  of  Jesus  which 
shall  make  us  feel  that  we  know  what 
manner  of  man  He  was.  If  in  the 
Gospels  we  get  a  living  picture  of  a 
man  with  definite  characteristics,  and 
if  those  characteristics  amount  to  the 
perfection  of  spiritual  freedom,  and 
if  we  can  trace  that  freedom  to  its 

23 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

underlying  cause,  that  is  all  we  re- 
quire from  the  Gospels  as  a  founda- 
tion of  Christianity.  We  believe  that 
in  the  first  three  Gospels  there  is  ex- 
actly what  we  want,  and  in  the  next 
chapter  we  shall  try  to  set  down  what 
we  feel  to  be  the  salient  features  of 
the  Master  whose  life  and  teaching 
they  portray,  and  to  trace  His  great- 
ness to  its  underlying  cause.  The 
greatness  of  Jesus  lies,  as  we  believe, 
in  His  freedom  from  all  the  evil  that 
enslaves  other  men ;  and  the  under- 
lying cause  is  His  unique  sense  of, 
and  trust  in  God. 

Then  from  the  Epistles  we  want  to 
know  that  other  people  came  to  share 
that  sense  and  love  of  God  in  a  minor 
degree,  through  their  faith  in  Jesus; 
and  that  in  due  measure  it  produced 
the  same  sort  of  results  in  them.  If 
we  find  evidence  of  this  in  the  Epis- 

24 


Value  of  the  New  Testament 

ties,  and  it  is  borne  out  by  our  own 
experience,  or  by  that  of  those  whom 
we  know,  Christianity  is  established 
for  us. 

But  first  a  word  about  criticism  and 
its  results. 

First  with  regard  to  the  Gospels, 
the  critics  have  discovered  that  two  of 
our  Gospels — Matthew  and  Luke — 
are  not  original  documents.  That  is 
to  say,  they  are  compiled  from  earlier 
documents,  of  which  one  was  our 
Mark,  and  another  a  collection  of  the 
sayings  of  Jesus.  It  is  commonly 
agreed  that  Mark  was  written  within 
forty  years  of  the  Crucifixion,  by  one 
of  the  second  generation  of  disciples. 
Most  probably  it  was  written  by  John 
Mark,  who  was  the  companion  of 
Barnabas,  Paul,  and  probably  Peter, 
who  had  lived  at  Jerusalem  at  the 
time  of  the  Crucifixion,  and  whose 

25 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

mother's  house  was  a  centre  where 
the  apostles  used  to  meet. 

The  other  document,  the  sayings 
of  Jesus,  is  sometimes  thought  to  be 
the  "Oracles  of  the  Lord"  which 
Matthew  is  said  to  have  written,  and 
is  commonly  held  to  be  of  the  highest 
authority,  and  to  have  been  written 
between  ten  and  twenty  years  after 
the  Crucifixion.  It  is  not  true  to  say 
that  Luke  did  not  write  the  Gospel 
called  by  his  name,  or  the  Acts.  The 
indications  are  that  he  did. 

There  are  other  sources  used  in 
Matthew  and  Luke  which  are  held  to 
be  of  various  value.  The  stories  in 
Matthew  about  the  birth  and  death  of 
Jesus  are  commonly  held  to  be  late 
and  legendary.  Those  in  Luke  are 
certainly  early,  though  opinions  vary 
as  to  their  value.  The  important 
thing  to  realise  is  that  the  Gospels  do 

26 


Value  of  the  New  Testament 

not  hang  together.  That  is  to  say, 
that  if  one  thinks  there  is  good  reason 
to  doubt  the  story  of  the  flight  into 
Egypt,  or  even  the  whole  story  of  the 
virgin  birth,  that  is  no  reason  for 
doubting  the  authenticity  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  because  they  come 
from  different  documents,  which  were 
transcribed  in  their  original  form. 

It  is  generally  admitted  that  John 
was  written  after  the  other  Gospels, 
and  is  more  of  a  sermon  on  the  incar- 
nation than  a  history  of  Jesus;  but 
the  question  whether  or  no  it  was 
written  by  John  the  son  of  Zebedee  is 
still  an  open  one. 

To  say  that  the  Epistles  of  Paul 
were  not  written  by  him,  as  our 
modern  unbelieving  critic  asserts,  is, 
as  a  generalisation  even,  not  true. 
It  is  generally  admitted  that  he 
certainly  wrote  Romans,  Corinthians, 

27 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

and  Galatians,  and  most  probably  he 
wrote  all  the  others  called  by  his  name 
except  Hebrews.  It  is  simply  non- 
sense to  say  that  Paul  shows  igno- 
rance of  the  teaching  and  life  of  Jesus 
as  recorded  in  the  Gospels.  The  Epis- 
tles were  not  written  to  display  knowl- 
edge of  the  gospel  story,  which  had 
been  conveyed  by  word  of  mouth ;  but 
to  decide  particular  difficulties  which 
had  arisen,  to  warn  and  to  exhort. 

But  two  things  stand  out  in  them. 
The  first  is  that  St.  Paul's  general 
attitude  was  an  adaptation  to  his  cir- 
cumstances  of  that  of  Jesus.  Jesus 
claimed  that  He  fulfilled  the  law.  He 
abrogated  it  by  fulfilling  its  intention. 
To  Jesus  the  law  had  become  un- 
necessary, because  He  was  in  the 
closest  touch  with  God  the  Father, 
and  the  law  was  simply  intended  as 
a  help  to  bring  men  into  touch  with 

28 


Value  of  the  New  Testament 

God.  St.  Paul  said  that  the  law  was 
a  schoolmaster  to  bring  us  to  Christ. 
For  him  too  the  law  was  abrogated, 
and  fulfilled,  because  through  faith  in 
Christ  he  had  got  into  touch  with  God, 
and  having  the  love  of  God  within 
him,  had  a  guide  which  was  better 
than  the  law.  What  Paul  calls  faith, 
and  John  calls  love,  is  simply  the 
sense  and  trust  of  God  which  had 
possessed  the  Master,  reproduced  in 
the  disciple.  In  addition  to  that,  the 
Epistles  abound  with  phrases  and 
ideas  which  are  echoes  and  often  quo- 
tations from  the  teaching  of  Jesus  as 
recorded  in  the  Gospels. 

The  following  list  of  such  reminis- 
cences of  the  Gospel  in  the  single 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  suggestive: 
i.  16  (Mark  viii.  38),  ii.  1  (Matt.  vii. 
1-5),  ii.  6  (Matt.  xvi.  2j),  ii.  19 
(Matt.  xv.  14),  v.  3  (Matt.  v.  11), 

29 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

vii.  3  (Matt.  v.  32),  vii.  6  (Matt.  xv. 
6),  ix.  32  (Matt.  xxi.  42),  x.  4  (Matt, 
v.  11),  x.  9  (Matt.  x.  32),  xi.  8 
(Matt.  xiii.  14),  xii.  14  ff.  (Matt.  v. 
43  ff.),  xiii.  7  (Matt.  xxii.  21),  xiv.  9 
(Matt.  xxii.  32),  xiv.  10  (Matt.  vii. 
1-5),  xiv.  12  (Matt.  xii.  36),  xiv.  13 
(Matt,  xviii.  6),  xiv.  17  (Matt.  vii. 
21),  xiv.  20  ( Matt.  xv.  11).  All  these 
breathe  the  spirit  of  the  Gospels,  and 
often  reproduce  the  actual  words. 
They  form  sufficient  answer  to  the 
statement  as  to  the  Pauline  author- 
ship of  the  Epistles,  which  like  many 
other  statements  are  as  untrue  as  they 
are  dogmatic. 

Summary. — Therefore  the  criti- 
cism of  the  Gospels,  far  from  destroy- 
ing their  value,  merely  makes  them 
more  intelligible  and  more  elastic. 
They  were  compiled  from  documents 
which  undoubtedly  give  us  a  true  pic- 

30 


Value  of  the  New  Testament 

ture  of  Jesus  and  His  teaching,  while 
on  the  other  hand  they  were  reduced 
to  their  present  form  at  a  sufficient 
time  after  the  events  recorded  for  us 
to  be  able  to  use  them  intelligently 
and  not  slavishly.  The  author  of  The 
Churches  and  Modem  Thought  wants 
to  use  the  Bible  slavishly  or  not  at 
all,  and  feels  that  if  God  were  going 
to  reveal  Himself  through  a  human 
life,  He  ought  not  only  to  have  sent 
an  infallible  biographer,  but  also  an 
infallible  portrait  painter,  to  preserve 
the  revelation. 

Had  the  revelation  of  God  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  ended  at  His  death, 
instead  of  only  beginning,  there  might 
have  been  some  show  of  reason  in  this 
contention.  But  God  does  not  act  in 
that  mechanical  way.  As  it  is,  we  get 
a  good  enough  idea  in  the  Gospels  of 
the  person  of  Jesus  as  He  was  to 

3i 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

enable  us  to  know  Him  and  love  Him 
as  He  is;  while  if  the  Gospels  were 
any  more  accurate  and  infallible  than 
they  are,  there  would  be  grave  danger 
that  we  should  exchange  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  living  Lord  for  the  pic- 
ture, and  Christianity  would  become 
a  dead  worship  of  a  book,  as  Judaism 
did  before  it. 


32 


V 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  JESUS,  OR  GOD 
FOUND 

WE  have  said  that  it  is  in  the 
"spiritual"  part  of  a  man 
that  we  have  the  surest  indication  of 
the  existence  of  God.  It  is  the  pres- 
ence in  men  of  conscience,  reason, 
choice,  purpose,  love,  etc.,  which 
makes  it  necessary  and  possible  to 
think  that  such  faculties  must  also 
exist  in  man's  Creator. 

Spirituality  shows  itself  in  freedom 
from  the  forces  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment, in  freedom  to  work  out 
the    ideals    which    the    reason    and 

33 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

conscience  and  the  nobler  affections 
join  in  forming.  It  is  in  the  man 
who  is  most  free  to  carry  out  what 
he  believes  to  be  best,  and  what  the 
common  conscience  of  mankind  re- 
cognises as  the  best  way  of  life,  that 
we  see  the  most  of  God;  and  the 
man  who  is  perfectly  free  would  be 
the  fullest  possible  revelation  of  God 
to  men.  The  question  is  whether  in 
the  Gospels  we  get  a  picture  of  a  man 
who  satisfies  to  the  full  our  highest 
ideals  for  human  life  and  character. 
If  so,  they  give  us  a  true  basis  for  the 
Christian  religion. 

Fear,  whether  moral  or  physical, 
is  one  of  the  most  contemptible  and 
common  of  human  failings.  Yet 
Jesus  seems  to  have  been  completely 
free  from  it.  He  was  not  afraid  to 
stand  out  against  the  Pharisees  and 
priests,  and  all  the  chief  personages 

34 


Freedom  of  Jesus,  or  God  Found 

of  His  time.  Nor  was  He  afraid  to 
stand  out  against  the  masses.  The 
important  people  wanted  Him  to 
keep  quiet,  and  the  masses  wanted 
Him  to  proclaim  Himself  the  Mes- 
siah and  lead  them  in  a  holy  war. 
Jesus  wTanted  to  persuade  people  that 
the  only  thing  in  life  really  worth 
having  was  the  single-minded  purity 
of  heart,  and  the  unselfish  and  un- 
boastful  love  that  comes  from  believ- 
ing in  and  loving  the  good  God  and 
Father. 

He  was  not  afraid  to  incur  the 
hatred  of  the  hypocrites  in  high  places 
whom  He  denounced,  nor  to  lose  the 
support  of  the  mob  whose  hopes  He 
disappointed;  He  went  on  His  way 
in  complete  freedom  and  independ- 
ence, and  was  not  dismayed  when  it 
became  evident  that  it  was  leading  to 
the   cross.      He   did   not    fear   men 

35 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

because  He  trusted  God;  He  did 
not  fear  death  because  He  believed 
in  eternal  life. 

We  find  the  same  freedom  from 
fear  in  Peter,  and  resting  upon  the 
same  ground,  when  he  says  to  the 
priests,  "We  must  obey  God  rather 
than  men"  (Acts  v.  29)  ;  and  in  Paul 
when  he  writes,  "If  God  is  for  us, 
who    is   against   us?"      (Rom.    viii. 

30- 

The  perfect  faith  of  Jesus  also  in- 
volved freedom  from  all  the  pride 
and  sensitiveness  and  desire  for  per- 
sonal popularity  or  position  or  wealth 
which  so  often  enslaves  men,  and 
which  led  the  Buddha  to  teach  that 
the  "Illusion"  of  selfhood  was  the 
source  of  all  evil.  His  mind  was  too 
full  of  the  greatness  of  God  to  be 
occupied  with  class  pride  or  social 
prejudice;  while  His  faith  was  such 

36 


Freedom  of  Jesus,  or  God  Found 

as  to  make  Him  indifferent  to  the 
immediate  results  of  His  work.  We 
read  that  He  was  content  to  trust 
that  His  death  would  accomplish  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom  with  power, 
since  His  life  had  failed  to  do  so. 

Convention  ar  d  tradition  exercised 
no  dominion  ov  tr  Him,  for  His  faith 
led  Him  to  trust  His  instinct  in  all 
matters  of  morality  and  belief;  and 
others  shared  that  confidence,  with 
the  result  that  the  conscience  of  Jesus 
became  for  His  disciples  an  authority 
higher  even  than  the  law,  which  they 
had  been  taught  to  believe  that  God 
Himself  had  given  to  Moses. 

He  was  not  the  slave  of  any 
artificial  philosophy.  He  was  not  re- 
duced to  calling  the  greatest  seem- 
ing realities  of  life  illusions,  like  the 
Buddha  or  the  Brahmins.  His  faith 
in  God  as  Father  and  Creator  en- 

37 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

abled  Him  to  accept  what  seemed 
good  and  wholesome  as  being  good 
and  wholesome,  and  what  seemed 
bad  and  harmful  as  being  bad  and 
harmful.  He  taught  men  to  trust 
the  guides  that  God  had  given  them, 
their  consciences  and  reasons  and 
ideals,  and  to  believe  in  their  ability, 
through  God's  help,  to  accomplish 
what  good  designs  they  were  led  to 
form. 

We  find  that  to  Jesus  the  union 
of  the  sexes  seemed  a  holy  partner- 
ship— indeed,  a  partnership  with  God 
in  His  work  of  creation.  For  Him- 
self there  was  no  such  union.  "Fash- 
ioned in  form  as  a  man,"  He  was 
without  passion,  and  the  unclouded 
vision  of  God,  which  He  enjoyed,  was 
the  direct  outcome  of  the  purity  of 
heart  from  which  came  His  marvel- 
lous serenity. 

38 


Freedom  of  Jesus,  or  God  Found 

Jesus,  in  spite  of  His  vision  of 
God,  and  His  clear  sense  of  having 
been  called,  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  in  any  way  fanatical.  He  was  ap- 
parently perfectly  humble,  the  friend 
of  all  kinds  of  men  and  women,  join- 
ing with  them  in  their  ordinary  fes- 
tivities. His  teaching,  according  to 
the  first  three  Gospels,  was  full  of 
sane  common  sense  and  humour ;  and 
shows  no  signs  of  fanaticism  or 
monomania.  There  is  evidence  that 
the  disciples  tried  to  weave  a  web  of 
mystery  and  wonder  about  Him;  but 
Jesus  always  seems  to  have  brought 
them  to  earth  again  with  words  of 
warning  and  reproof. 

Though  He  loved  to  retire  by 
Himself  to  pray,  it  was  always  that 
He  might  return  to  work  refreshed. 

Like  all  men  Jesus  was  liable  to 
the  temptation  to  doubt.    He  lived  by 

39 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

subjective  knowledge  of  God,  not 
objective;  by  trusting  the  spiritual, 
not  by  the  evidence  of  the  senses.  He 
did  not  see  God  with  His  eyes,  nor 
hear  Him  with  His  ears. 

No  sooner  did  He  receive  the  rev- 
elation of  His  divine  Sonship  at  His 
baptism  than  He  was  tempted  to 
doubt  it,  and  to  demand  an  objec- 
tive sign.  "If  thou  art  the  Son  of 
God  .  .  ."  whispered  the  tempter. 
At  His  betrayal  He  shrank  from  the 
ordeal  before  Him,  and  yet  at  His 
trial  before  Caiaphas  He  made  the 
supreme  confession  of  His  faith.  On 
the  cross  it  was  still  possible  that 
He  had  trusted  in  vain,  and  the 
suffering  body  cried  out  that  it  was 
so.  Yet  the  words  with  which  He 
voiced  His  agony  are  from  the  be- 
ginning of  a  psalm  of  agony  that 
ends   in   triumph;   and,   if   Luke   is 

40 


Freedom  of  Jesus,  or  God  Found 

to  be  believed,  His  last  words  were, 
"Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commend 
my  spirit." 

In  this  picture  of  the  nobility  of 
perfect  freedom  we  Christians  find 
the  basis  of  our  faith.  Surely  such  a 
revelation  is  worthy  of  a  God  who 
desires  the  loving  trust  of  children, 
rather  than  the  fear  or  cupboard  love 
of  slaves. 


4i 


VI 

THB  LIVING   JESUS,   OUR   LORD 


w 


E  have  given  our  reasons  for 
disagreeing  with  the  writers 
who  deny  the  authenticity  of  the  Gos- 
pels and  who  call  the  story  of  Jesus 
"legend."  We  must  now  go  on  to 
show  why  we  disagree  with  them 
when  they  call  the  belief  in  the  living 
Jesus  "hallucination." 

Of  course  the  belief  started  with 
what  such  writers  call  the  "legend" 
of  the  resurrection.  Granting  that 
we  cannot  establish  by  historical  proof 
the  details  of  the  gospel  story,  and 
indeed,    such    a    story    cannot,    by 

42 


The  Living  Jesus,  Our  Lord 

reason  of  its  wonder,  be  established 
on  purely  historical  grounds,  what  do 
we  know  for  certain  about  the  matter  ? 
Just  this,  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus 
ran  away  when  He  was  betrayed, 
and  made  no  attempt  to  save  Him; 
and  that  a  couple  of  months  after 
He  was  safely  crucified,  and,  as  His 
enemies  thought,  finished  with,  they 
were  preaching  that  He  was  risen  to 
an  eternal  life,  and  could  not  be  de- 
terred from  preaching. 

What  Jesus  had  prophesied  had 
come  to  pass.  His  death,  and  .  .  . 
what  happened  afterwards,  had  done 
what  His  life  had  failed  to  do — 
brought  the  kingdom  of  God  to  men 
with  power.  Well,  what  did  happen 
afterwards?  What  was  the  effective 
cause  of  this  change  in  the  disciples? 
Our  critic,  for  example,  says  nothing 
in  particular — hallucination,  self-de- 

43 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

ception,  imagination,  nerves  .  .  .! 
Peter  said  it  was  the  fact  that  Jesus 
had  risen  from  the  dead,  and  that 
they  had  seen  Him,  and  received  the 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  had 
made  new  men  of  them.  Choose 
which  explanation  you  like. 

A  point  of  interest  is  that  this 
"hallucination"  of  the  disciple  is 
exactly  like  the  "hallucination"  of  his 
Master.  Jesus  thought  that  He  was 
the  Son  of  God,  and  that  God  His 
Father  gave  Him  wisdom  and  power 
and  purity  and  goodness.  And  lo! 
He  had  them!  Peter  and  Paul 
thought  that  they  had  received  the 
Holy  Spirit  which  would  give  them 
courage  and  power  to  do  their  work 
in  the  world.  And  lo !  They  did  it ! 
We  have  to  admit  that  where  faith 
is  strong  it  is  mightily  effective  for 
good. 

44 


The  Living  Jesus,  Our  Lord 

And  after  all,  is  it  so  irrational  and 
absurd  to  trust  the  spiritual — the  sub- 
jective? It  is  easy  to  say  that  what 
isn't  matter  doesn't  matter,  and  that 
nothing  is  real  but  the  physical. 
And  yet  every  time  we  try  to  in- 
fluence our  characters  and  destinies 
we  are  showing  a  practical  belief 
in  a  power  or  faculty  which  the  ma- 
terialist is  obliged  to  condemn  as  an 
illusion.  Every  time  we  praise  or 
blame  another  man,  or  try  to  rouse 
him  to  effort  against  vice  or  tempta- 
tion, we  are  trusting  the  spiritual  and, 
according  to  the  materialist,  acting 
irrationally. 

It  is  unfortunately  true  that 
Christians  by  no  means  live  up  to 
the  creed  that  they  profess.  It  is 
not  easy  to  embody  Jesus.  But 
when  one  does  meet  the  really  Christ- 
like man,  the  man  who  has  strength 

45 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

tempered  by  love,  and  faith  with  hu- 
mility and  humour,  he  is  the  best  that 
can  be.  And  so,  though  we  may  grant 
that  faith  may  be  hallucination,  and 
the  spirit  may  be  illusion,  we  can 
afford  to  run  the  risk  because  of  the 
solid  benefits  that  ensue.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  cannot  afford  to  run 
the  risk  of  losing  the  best  things  in 
life,  because  our  belief  in  them  may 
be  illusion.  It  was  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  that  we  must  take  the  risk. 
"He  that  would  find  his  life  shall 
lose  it." 


46 


VII 

NOTES  ON  COMPARATIVE 
MYTHOLOGY 

IN  the  book  which  supplied  the 
basis  for  this  simple  Apologetic 
by  a  layman  there  is  a  chapter  of 
some  15,000  words  on  this  subject,  in 
which  the  author  tries  to  show  that 
the  teaching  and  the  incidents  in  the 
life  of  Christ,  and  the  chief  doctrines 
and  rites  of  the  Church  are  none  of 
them  original,  but  all  paralleled  in, 
if  not  borrowed  from,  other  religions. 
The  charge  is  an  old  one;  it  has 
often  been  adequately  answered  by 
scholars,  but  somehow  its  errors  and 

47 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

exaggerations  are  never  scotched; 
and  so  they  are  constantly  startling 
the  unwary,  ignorant,  and  credulous 
reader.  In  the  case  of  The  Churches 
and  Modern  Thought  it  is  the  worst 
and  least  honest  chapter  in  the  book. 
It  is  bad  because  it  displays  all 
through  a  complete  failure  to  realise 
the  nature  of  Christianity  either  ac- 
tually or  historically;  it  is  disingenu- 
ous because  it  is  full  of  statements 
on  subjects  of  which  the  ordinary 
reader  is  quite  ignorant,  which  state- 
ments are  drawn  from  worthless 
and  inaccurate  sources,  and  bolstered 
up  with  the  names  of  "authorities" 
with  whose  works  the  writer  shows 
he  has  had  no  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance. In  this  chapter  we  shall  try 
to  show  shortly  why,  even  if  the 
facts  were  correct,  the  author's  re- 
marks are  mostly  beside  the  point; 

48 


Comparative  Mythology 

and  in  the  next  chapter  we  shall  try 
to  show  equally  shortly  that  his 
"facts"  are  mainly  fictions,  or  distor- 
tions of  the  truth. 

The  objects  of  the  attack  may  be 
roughly  divided  into  (a)  incidents  in 
the  gospel  story;  (b)  the  teaching  and 
sinlessness  of  Jesus;  and  (c)  Church 
doctrine  and  practice. 

Incidents  in  the  gospel  story. — The 
incidents  in  the  gospel  story  which 
are  attacked  are  chiefly  the  stories 
connected  with  the  birth  and  miracles 
of  Jesus.  "Parallels"  are  adduced 
from  Buddhism,  Hinduism,  Mithra- 
ism,  the  ancient  religion  of  Mexico, 
and  other  sources,  to  show  that  the 
stories  of  the  Slaughter  of  the  Inno- 
cents, the  Virgin  Birth,  the  Adoration 
of  the  Shepherds,  the  Temptation, 
etc.,  were  most  probably  adaptations 
from  the  stories  of  previous  "gods," 

49 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

saints,  and  teachers,  or  at  the  best  the 
kind  of  story  that  always  is  invented 
about  great  heroes  of  antiquity  when 
they  are  dead. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of  the 
alleged  "parallels"  are  absurd;  but 
even  if  they  were  not,  it  need  not 
trouble  us.  In  any  case,  these  stories 
are  merely  embellishments  of  the  gos- 
pel story,  whether  true  or  not.  They 
are  not  evidences  of  Christianity; 
they  are  not,  from  the  literary  point 
of  view,  bound  up  with  the  rest  of  the 
Gospels,  for  they  are  declared  by 
critics  to  be  derived  from  different 
sources  from  the  bulk  of  the  Gospels. 
Take  them  away,  and  Christianity  is 
still  left.  It  is  merely  robbed  of  some 
jewellery,  which  many  consider  to  be 
meretricious  and  unbecoming. 

The  Teaching  of  Jesus,  and  His 
sinlessness. — Our  modern  "agnostic" 

50 


Comparative  Mythology 

would  have  us  believe  that  the  teach- 
ing attributed  to  Jesus  is  just  like 
the  teaching  of  any  other  saint  or 
moralist.  In  this  theory  there  is  a 
superficial  truth  and  a  fundamental 
fallacy.  It  is  perfectly  true  that 
nearly  all  thoughtful  and  holy  men 
have  been  and  are  agreed  that  cer- 
tain actions  and  states  of  mind  are 
good,  and  others  bad.  Unselfishness, 
generosity,  courage,  humility,  and 
purity,  for  instance,  are  commonly 
agreed  to  be  good;  meanness,  cant, 
fear,  passion,  bestiality  are  as  uni- 
versally recognised  to  be  bad.  If 
Jesus  had  done  no  more  than  to  set 
the  seal  of  His  approval  on  our  ideas 
of  what  is  good  and  bad,  He  could 
not  claim  any  originality. 

But  that  which  makes  Jesus  origi- 
nal— and  for  that  matter  makes, 
the  Buddha,  and  the  Brahmins,  and 

5i 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

Mrs.  Eddy,  and  lots  of  other  teachers 
original — is  that  they  all  recognise 
that  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt  to  be 
good  by  making  a  series  of  discon- 
nected efforts  to  do  the  right  thing 
when  temptation  to  do  the  opposite 
arises;  they  all  recognise  that  in 
order  to  be  good  one  has  got  to 
have  a  point  of  view,  a  theory  of  life, 
a  condition  of  mind  which  will  auto- 
matically produce  the  right  solution 
of  each  problem  as  it  arises.  The 
reason  why  Jesus  is  different  from 
other  teachers  is  that  He  gives  a  dif- 
ferent, and  a  more  natural,  explana- 
tion of  why  certain  things  are  good, 
and  others  bad ;  and  because  He  gives 
a  different  picture  of  the  right  point 
of  view  from  which  to  regard  life. 
Similarly,  the  question  of  His  "sin- 
lessness"  is  not  to  be  settled  by  a 
critical    inquiry   into   each   separate 

52 


Comparative  Mythology 

incident  recorded  of  Him,  but  by 
asking  whether  He  seems  to  have 
been  able  to  adopt  the  point  of  view 
which  He  recommended  to  others, 
and  if  so,  whether  the  results  were 
satisfactory. 

Jesus,  Krishna,  and  the  Buddha. — 
As  to  the  alleged  similarity  between 
Krishna  and  Jesus  on  the  idea  of 
goodness  the  following  quotation  is 
a  typical  example:  "Let  a  man,  if 
seeking  God  by  deep  abstraction, 
abandon  his  possessions  and  his 
hopes,  and  betake  himself  to  some 
secluded  spot,  and  fix  his  heart  and 
thoughts  on  God  alone."  Here  we 
have  (i)  the  common  ground— the 
recognition  that  worldly  riches  and 
rewards  are  not  worth  the  price  paid 
for  them,  and  that  it  is  the  eternal 
riches  of  God  which  really  matter. 
But  (2)  we  have  the  expression  of 

53 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

the  foundation  doctrine  of  the 
Brahmins,  which  is  wholly  at  variance 
with  that  of  Christ.  The  Brahmins 
hold  that  the  material  world  is  an 
illusion,  and  that  the  way  of  salva- 
tion is  to  withdraw  from  contact  with 
it,  and  to  try  and  become  obsessed 
with  the  thought  of  God.  The  Chris- 
tian theory  is  that  the  world  is  a 
school  to  prepare  men  for  a  wider 
life.  Holiness  and  strength  of  char- 
acter are  to  be  gained  by  loving  and 
helping  other  men,  by  enduring  suf- 
fering, and  fighting  evil  with  faith. 
The  fundamental  doctrine  of  Jesus 
was  that  God  is  the  Father,  and  that 
once  a  man  has  really  grasped  that  he 
will  be  able  to  see  everything  else  in 
its  right  proportion,  and  to  meet 
every  problem  of  life  with  courage 
and  profit.  Abandonment  of  wealth 
is   only   recommended  when  wealth 

54 


Comparative  Mythology 

obscures  a  man's  vision  of  God;  and 
withdrawal  to  solitary  prayer  is  only 
advised  as  a  preparation  for  a  return 
to  active  life.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no 
words  could  have  been  chosen  which 
would  better  illustrate  the  difference 
between  them ! 

But  there  remains  the  Buddha. 
Jesus  and  the  Buddha  both  taught 
unselfishness.  But  whereas  the 
Buddha  taught  the  artificial  doctrine 
that  the  personality  of  a  man  was 
an  illusion,  and  that  this  illusion  was 
the  source  of  all  evil,  Jesus  taught 
the  natural  doctrine  that  a  man's 
personality  was  the  best  thing  he 
had,  and  that  it  made  him  capable 
of  being  a  loving  son  to  a  loving 
Father  in  heaven,  and  a  loving 
and  loyal  brother  to  his  fellow-men. 
Such  "parallels"  may  arouse  "grave 
suspicions"  in  prejudiced  minds  about 

55 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

the  truth  of  Christianity.  They 
arouse  "grave  suspicions"  in  mine  as 
to  the  fitness  of  agnostics  of  this  class 
to  write  about  Christianity ! 


56 


VIII 

comparative:  mythology 

(continued) 

IN  the  last  chapter  we  dealt  with 
recent  attacks  on  the  originality 
of  certain  incidents  in  the  gospel  nar- 
rative, and  on  the  teaching  and  char- 
acter of  Jesus — on  the  assumption 
that  the  facts  were  correct.  In  the 
present  chapter  we  must  deal,  on 
the  same  assumption,  with  the  at- 
tacks on  Christian  doctrines  and  rites, 
The  three  most  important  doctrines 
that  are  generally  attacked  are  the 
Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  and  the 
Resurrection ;  the  most  important  rite 

57 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

that  is  attacked  is  that  of  Holy  Com- 
munion. 

The  Incarnation. — The  critic  points 
out  that  in  several  ancient  religions 
the  necessity  was  felt  for  some  link 
between  men  and  God.  For  instance, 
the  Grseco-Roman  demigods  were  di- 
vine men,  and  to  some  extent  "incar- 
nations" of  deity. 

There  is  indeed  some  truth  in  this 
statement ;  but  it  -is  certainly  not  an 
argument  against  Christianity.  Two 
facts  lie  at  the  root  of  all  religion — 
( i )  that  men  are  partly  spiritual,  and 
therefore  compelled  to  imagine  the 
existence  of  a  God  or  gods;  (2)  that 
men  can  only  receive  impressions  and 
find  expression  of  their  thoughts 
through  their  bodies.  It  follows  that 
religion,  or  men's  thoughts  about  God, 
can  only  become  articulate  if  God  is 
revealed  to  men  in  terms  of  human 

58 


Comparative  Mythology 

life.  An  incarnation  is  the  only  pos- 
sible sound  basis  for  a  religion  which 
is  to  be  something  more  than  senti- 
ment and  guesswork,  and  it  is  natu- 
ral enough  that  thoughtful  men 
should  have  realised  it  long  ago. 
Christianity  is  based  on  the  idea 
that  in  Jesus  God  revealed  Himself 
to  men  in  so  far  as  He  could  be  so 
revealed-  If  God  wants  us  to  have 
a  religion  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
how  else  He  could  have  given  us  a 
true  one.  Christianity  is  thus  based 
on  what  had  long  been  recognised 
as  the  only  possible  basis  for  real  re- 
ligion. 

In  every  other  respect  the  Christian 
incarnation  differs  from  those  of  con- 
temporary religions.  This  difference 
was  fully  realised  by  the  early  Chris- 
tians, though  not  by  their  opponents. 
The  pagans  of  the  Roman  Empire 

59 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

were  quite  willing  to  let  Jesus  have 
a  place  among  the  numerous  demi- 
gods of  their  pantheon,  and  were  ut- 
terly unable  to  understand  the  Chris- 
tians' obstinate  refusal  to  accept  their 
offer.  If  the  Christian  incarnation 
had  been,  as  has  been  suggested,  bor- 
rowed from  pagan  ideas,  this  refusal 
would  have  been  incomprehensible; 
but  as  it  is,  the  refusal  proves  that 
the  suggestion  has  no  real  founda- 
tion. 

The  Atonement. — In  several  Ori- 
ental religions  the  idea  is  found  of  a 
demi-god  saving  his  adherents  by 
freeing  the  spirit  from  the  bondage  of 
the  flesh.  This  was  the  root  idea,  ap- 
parently, of  most  of  the  "mystery  re- 
ligions. "  God  was  thought  of  as  pure 
spirit,  and  men  as  partly  spirit  and 
partly  flesh.  Salvation  consisted  in 
setting  the  spirit  free  from  the  flesh. 

60 


Comparative  Mythology 

This  was  supposed  to  be  accomplished 
in  some  cases  by  abusing  the  flesh — 
religious  immorality — and  in  others 
by  starving  it — religious  asceticism 
and  chastity.  In  Christianity  we  have 
the  novel  idea,  which  when  under- 
stood is  such  a  sensible  idea,  of  the 
spirit  gaining  strength  by  controlling 
the  body,  and  using  it  for  right  and 
natural  purposes.  In  some  cases,  espe- 
cially in  the  case  of  religions  founded 
on  Sun  worship,  there  occurs  the  idea 
of  a  god  dying  and  rising  again  for 
the  salvation  of  men.  But  here  again 
we  have  practical  experience  forcing 
people  to  recognise  fundamental 
facts,  and  to  invent  symbols  for  them 
in  their  mythologies. 

The  author  of  Isaiah,  chapter  liii., 
is  an  example  of  a  man  forced  by  ex- 
perience to  recognise  the  great  prin- 
ciple   that    the    sufferings    of    the 

61 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

innocent  are  often  the  salvation  of 
the  guilty.  That  this  fundamental 
fact  of  life  should  be  embodied  in 
Christianity  is  no  argument  against 
Christianity.  In  fact,  we  may  assert 
that  if  it  were  not  so  embodied 
Christianity  would  be  inadequate  as 
a  universal  religion.  That  the  prin- 
ciple should  have  been  recognised 
in  pagan  mythologies  is  simply  an 
additional  demonstration  of  how  es- 
sential it  is.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement,  like  that  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, is  a  necessary  element  in  re- 
ligion. That  Jesus  suffered,  and  that 
through  His  sufferings  His  disciples 
gain  power;  that  He  rose  from  the 
dead,  and  that  His  disciples  hope  for 
eternal  life,  are  features  which  help 
to  make  Christianity  a  real  power 
in  life.  That  others  should  have 
recognised    the    necessity    for    such 

62 


Comparative  Mythology 

features  in  religion  is  no  argument 
against  the  likelihood  of  their  occur- 
ring in  the  true  religion  given  by  God 
to  men. 

The  Resurrection. — It  is  suggested 
that  the  story  of  Jesus  rising  again 
the  third  day  is  fiction  based  on  the 
story  of  Jonah  and  the  whale,  which 
in  turn  is  fiction  based  on  "the  Solar 
Myth."  The  Solar  Myth,  which  ap- 
pears in  many  ancient  religions,  is  the 
story  of  a  sun-god  dying  and  rising 
again.  Jonah,  however,  was  not  a 
sun-god;  and  the  story  of  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  is  not  based  on  Jo- 
nah's adventures  in  the  whale !  There 
is  a  reference  to  Jonah  in  the  Gos- 
pels, which  is  presumably  the  founda- 
tion of  this  theory;  but  it  appears  in 
two  forms,  of  which  the  earlier  and 
more  authentic  (according  to  all 
critics)  is  that  of  Luke  xi.  30.     In 

63 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

Luke,  Jesus  says  that  no  sign  shall 
be  given  to  His  generation  but  the 
sign  of  the  prophet  Jonah,  and  ex- 
plains it  by  pointing  out  that  whereas 
the  Ninevites  repented  at  the  preach- 
ing of  Jonah,  the  Jews  will  not 
repent  at  the  preaching  of  Himself. 
It  is  the  prophetic  denunciation  of 
sin  which  is  the  "sign."  Matthew, 
however,  put  a  new  construction  on 
the  passage,  and  read  into  it  a  ref- 
erence to  the  Resurrection.  But  the 
reference  is  obviously  forced,  if  only 
because  "whereas  Jonas  was  three 
days  and  three  nights  in  the  belly 
of  the  whale"  (Matt.  xii.  40),  Jesus 
was  only  two  nights  and  one  day 
"in  the  heart  of  the  earth" — that 
is,  according  to  the  gospel.  If 
the  "third-day  resurrection"  had  been 
invented  in  connection  with  Jonah, 
presumably  Jesus  would  have  been 

64 


Comparative  Mythology 

alleged   to   have   risen   on   Monday 
evening. 

Holy  Communion. — Mithraism  had 
a  "mystery,"  in  which  the  symbols 
were  a  wafer  marked  with  two 
crossed  lines,  and  a  cup  of  water. 
That  Holy  Communion  should  have 
been  "cribbed"  from  this  is  an  idea 
too  fanciful  to  be  worth  discussing. 
The  partaking  of  a  common  meal  in 
token  of  mutual  loyalty  was  quite  a 
recognised  custom  in  ancient  times, 
and  this  is  undoubtedly  the  reason 
why  Jesus  chose  that  form  of  rite  for 
binding  His  disciples  to  Him  at  the 
moment  of  His  departure  from  them. 
The  choice  of  bread  and  wine,  as  sym- 
bolising His  body  and  blood,  endowed 
the  rite  with  a  peculiar  character,  the 
appropriateness  of  which  was  recog- 
nised as  soon  as  "the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit"  had  made  the  apostles 

65 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

realise  that  they  were  to  try  and  em- 
body Jesus. 

a  /  general  remark. — In  all  books 
such  as  the  one  to  which  we  have  been 
referring  so  often,  a  root  defect  is 
that  the  writers  all  appear  to  regard 
themselves  as  capable  of  sketching 
out  the  plans  of  God  with  the  world  if 
there  had  been  a  God.  Thus  they  are 
ready  to  say  that  God  ought  to  have 
ignored  all  previous  human  aspira- 
tion in  giving  His  self -revelation.  He 
ought  not  to  have  met  men  half- 
way as  He  actually  has  done.  They 
can  see  no  half-way  house  between 
claiming  absolute  originality  for  ev- 
ery detail  of  the  form  of  God's  self- 
revelation,  and  granting  the  sanction 
of  Christianity  to  every  previous 
effort  of  the  human  mind  to  seek 
God,  however  great  a  mixture  of 
truth   and    fantasy  it  may  contain. 

66 


Comparative  Mythology 

But  surely  the  Christian  theory  that 
in  all  men's  searches  for  God  there 
was  a  measure  of  success,  and  a 
measure  of  failure,  and  that  every 
guess  at  truth  finds  its  fulfilment  in 
Christianity,  while  every  false  idea 
is  destined  to  perish  eventually,  even 
if  it  has  not  done  so  already,  is  the 
natural  and  rational  explanation  of 
the  Phenomena  of  Comparative  Re- 
ligion. 


67 


IX 

COMPARATIVE     MYTHOLOGY : 
FINAI,  REMARKS 

HITHERTO  we  have  assumed 
that  the  "parallels"  which 
our  typical  modern  "agnostic"  ad- 
duces are  well  founded  on  careful 
first-hand  study  of  the  best  authori- 
ties. But,  alas,  it  is  a  vain  assump- 
tion! Such  an  air  of  regretful  hon- 
esty, such  confident  dogmatism,  such 
professions  of  a  love  of  truth  for  its 
own  sake  may  well  have  led  us  astray, 
as  no  doubt  they  were  intended  to  do. 
When  I  first  read  The  Churches  and 
Modem    Thought,    I    accepted    the 

68 


Comparative  Mythology 

author's  good  faith  and  authorities 
unquestioningly.  But  when  I  read 
Cumont's  book  on  Mithraism,  which 
appeared  to  be  the  most  impartial 
and  scientific  authority  on  the  subject, 
my  doubts  were  aroused.  Therefore 
my  own  remarks  will  be  confined  to 
this  branch  of  the  subject.  But 
anyone  who  wants  to  read  the 
criticism  of  other  branches  should 
buy  Howard  Nash's  Pagan  Christ s, 
which  reveals  the  fact  that  the  great- 
er proportion  of  The  Churches  and 
Modem  Thought  "facts"  were  taken 
wholesale,  and  without  verification, 
from  a  worthless  American  work, 
which  is  a  deliberate  distortion  of  the 
real  authorities.  The  "higher  criti- 
cism" of  that  work  is  thus  both  amus- 
ing and  instructive,  and  the  "grave 
suspicions"  that  it  arouses  of  honesty 
or   intelligence   of    the   author    are 

69 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

.  .  .  well,  graver  than  the  gravest  of 
his  about  Christianity  ! 

Mithraism. — Most  of  his  impres- 
sive "facts"  about  Mithraism  seem 
to  be  taken  from  J.  M.  Robertson. 
This  latter  gentleman  is  doubtless 
honest;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  he 
has  a  sense  of  humour  since  the  fol- 
lowing are  among  the  "parallels" 
which  he  adduces  between  Mithraism 
and  Christianity: 

(i)  Mithras  evolved  from  a  rock 
as  a  full-blown  man  in  a  Phrygian 
cap.  Jesus  was  born  a  baby,  of  a 
human  mother,  in  a  stable  which  is 
said  by  Justin  Martyr  and  Origen(  !) 
to  have  been  a  rock  cave.  Peter  in  his 
Epistle  talks  about  Christians  being 
built  as  "living  stones''  into  Christ. 

(2)  Shepherds  saw  Mithras  aris- 
ing from  the  rock,  and  adored  him. 
Shepherds  are  said  to  have  adored 

70 


Comparative  Mythology 

the  infant  Jesus.  (Incidentally,  as  it 
was  a  little  while  afterwards  that 
Mithras  created  the  first  human 
couple,  it  is  uncertain  who  the  shep- 
herds were.) 

(3)  Mithras  was  one  of  a  host  of 
demigods,  supposed  to  bridge  the 
gulf  between  God  and  man.  Jesus 
is  supposed  to  have  embodied  the 
will  of  God,  and  revealed  Him  to 
men. 

(4)  Several  of  the  Twelve  Apostles 
were  fishermen.  There  were  twelve 
signs  of  Zodiac,  one  of  which  was 
"Aquarius" — incidentally,  there  were 
also  twelve  tribes  of  Israel ! 

(5)  Mithraism  had  rites  connected 
with  the  "Solar  Myth,"  and  the  dy- 
ing and  rising  of  the  sun-god.  Chris- 
tians believed  that  Jesus  died  and  rose 
again. 

(6)  The  Mithraists  had  a  ritual 

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Religion  and  Common  Sense 

meal  in  which  a  wafer  marked  with 
crossed  lines  and  a  cup  of  water 
figured.  It  is  supposed  to  have 
something  to  do  with  the  slaying  of 
a  bull  by  Mithras,  but  the  exact  mean- 
ing is  lost.  The  Christians  had  a 
meal  of  bread  and  wine  which  sym- 
bolised the  embodiment  of  Jesus 
by  His  Church. 

(7)  Mithras  is  to  judge  the  dead, 
and  so  is  Jesus. 

(8)  Christmas  Day  is  on  the  same 
date  as  a  Mithraic  feast. 

Of  these  "parallels"  all  but  the  last 
two  are  surely  palpably  absurd.  The 
date  of  Christmas  Day  very  likely  was 
fixed  for  convenience  on  a  date  which 
was  already  a  festival.  It  was  not 
one  of  the  original  feast  days  of  the 
Church.  So  the  only  real  parallel 
is  number  seven;  which  proves 
nothing. 

72 


Comparative  Mythology 

Facts  about  Mithraism  not  men- 
tioned by  our  agnostic. — Mithraism 
was  a  part  of  the  ancient  religion  of 
Persia,  of  which  Professor  Cumont 
writes,  "One  must  lay  to  the  charge 
of  the  Persian  mysteries  the  serious 
reproach  of  having  condoned,  perhaps 
even  promoted  (enseigne) ,  all  super- 
stitions." He  also  says,  "Mithra  was 
accompanied  on  his  migrations  by  a 
great  part  of  the  Mazdean  Pantheon. " 
Of  these  other  gods  the  rest  were 
cheerfully  identified  with  those  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  Thus  "Time" — 
originally  nameless — was  identified 
with  Saturn,  "Heaven"  with  Jupiter, 
"Earth"  with  Juno,  "Ocean"  with 
Neptune,  Haoma  with  Bacchus,  Atar 
with  Vulcan,  etc.,  etc.  Mithras  him- 
self was  god  of  the  upper  air.  After 
he  came  to  earth  he  fought  and  con- 
quered the  sun-god,  who  became  his 

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Religion  and  Common  Sense 

friend,  and  to  whom  he  gave  the 
torch  with  which  to  dispel  the  dark- 
ness. Then  he  slew  a  bull,  from 
whose  blood  arose  plants,  useful 
animals,  and  the  first  human  couple. 
They  demanded  water,  which  he 
obtained  by  shooting  an  arrow  at  a 
rock.  Then  he  and  the  sun-god 
returned  to  heaven  and  had  a  feast. 
He  is  the  god  of  truth  and  courage 
and  morality. 

Such  is  the  legend  of  Mithras, 
upon  whose  life  and  work  it  is  gravely 
suggested  that  some  of  the  most  dis- 
tinctive features  of  Christianity  were 
built!  As  to  the  explanations  of  the 
extinction  of  Mithraism  and  the  sur- 
vival of  Christianity  it  is  put  forward 
that  the  vulgarity  of  the  carpenter 
was  better  suited  to  the  low  level  of 
intelligence  prevalent  in  the  dying 
years  of  the  Empire  than  the  loftier 

74 


Comparative  Mythology 

symbolism  of  Mithraism !  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  however,  Christianity  was 
defined  long  before  Mithraism  had 
any  hold  on  the  Roman  Empire  at  all ; 
£nd  the  obvious  reason  why  Christian- 
ity survived  when  Mithraism  fell  was 
that  Christianity  was  based  on  his- 
tory and  experience,  while  Mithraism 
was  based  on  mythology ;  Christianity 
was  rational  and  intelligible,  while 
Mithraism  was  fanciful  and  mysteri- 
ous; Christianity  was  monotheistic, 
while  Mithraism,  though  it  had  a 
supreme  Being  in  the  background, 
was  overloaded  with  hundreds  of 
purely  imaginary  lesser  deities. 

An  elementary  fact  of  history. — 
One  important  if  elementary  fact 
must  be  noted — Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity were  both  unique  religions  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  therefore 
cannot  have  been  in  any  important 

75 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

particular  derived  from  those  which 
were  not  unique.  We  have  already 
touched  on  the  unique  character  of 
Judaism  in  connection  with  the  Old 
Testament.  Christianity  was  unique 
in  the  following  respects : 

( i )  It  was  the  only  religion  which 
claimed  to  be  universal,  and  which 
had  neither  images  of  God,  nor  a 
mythology  of  subordinate  gods,  nor 
sacrifice. 

(2)  It  was  the  only  religion,  except 
Judaism,  which  refused  to  tolerate 
other  religions,  and  was  wholly  ex- 
clusive. 

(3)  It  was  the  only  religion  which 
preached  a  genuine  historical  incarna- 
tion, and  which  contained  in  a  ration- 
al and  historical  form  the  satisfaction 
of  all  the  true  aspirations  of  paganism. 

For  these  reasons,  and  because  it 
preached  on  reasonable  grounds  the 

76 


Comparative  Mythology 

brotherhood  of  man,  it  survived.  But 
for  a  long  time  Christians  were  mis- 
understood. Because  they  had  no 
images,  and  because  they  denied  the 
other  gods,  and  because  women  were 
as  welcome  at  their  worship  as  men, 
they  were  accused  of  atheism  and 
immorality.  Because  they  claimed 
Christianity  to  be  the  true  religion 
for  all  mankind,  they  did  not  receive 
the  tolerance  which  was  allowed  to 
Judaism  as  a  national  "superstition." 
Christianity  moved  at  first  along  a 
stony  path — misunderstood,  lonely, 
exclusive.  What  little  it  did  borrow 
from  paganism  was  borrowed  long 
after  the  New  Testament  had  fixed 
for  ever  its  essential  features. 


77 


X 

EVOLUTION  AND  ATONEMENT 

WE  may  readily  grant  the  proofs 
of  our  animal  origin,  and  as 
readily  abandon  the  early  chapters 
of  Genesis,  regarded  either  as  history 
or  science.  The  question  is  whether 
the  acceptance  of  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion compels  us  to  believe  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  human  sin,  and 
no  such  thing  as  divine  forgiveness. 

The  argument  is  that  if  man 
evolved  from  the  animal,  the  first 
man  cannot  have  been  better  than 
us,  he  must  have  been  worse ;  because 
his  passions  were  stronger  and  his 

78 


Evolution  and  Atonement 

power  of  control  more  rudimentary. 
Further,  if  we  evolved  from  the 
animal  by  slow  degrees,  at  what  stage 
did  the  spirit  enter,  and  the  animal 
become  a  man?  Again,  if  man  was 
never  innocent,  and  never  had  the 
chance  to  be  innocent,  how  can  he  be 
held  responsible  for  sin? 

"Oh  Thou  who  man  of  baser  earth  didst 

make, 
And  who  with  Eden  didst  devise  the  snake, 
For  all  the  sin  with  which  the  face  of  man 
Is  blackened,  man's  forgiveness  give — and 

take !" 

We  cannot  hope  to  explain  every- 
thing in  the  world,  because  we  do  not 
know  enough  about  it.  We  can't 
say  exactly  when  the  spirit  entered 
man.  Perhaps  the  spirit  was  in  the 
ape,  and  even  in  the  first  living  cell 
that  appeared  upon  the  earth,  but  only 
became  articulate  when  the  animal 

79 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

organism  reached  the  stage  that  it 
reached  with  the  first  man.  We 
cannot  say  how  innocent  or  how 
guilty  the  first  man  was.  After  all, 
guilt  is  not  judged  by  an  external 
standard,  but  by  a  balancing  of 
achievement  and  opportunity.  Sin 
in  one  man  is  not  sin  in  another. 
Sin  is  failure  to  make  the  best  of 
what  one  has,  the  failure  to  progress. 
The  sinners  in  the  Gospels  are  the 
men  who,  like  the  Pharisees,  are 
content  with  the  measure  of  respect- 
ability that  they  possess,  and  are 
not  hungry  for  something  better. 
The  publican  was  inferior  to  the 
Pharisee  if  judged  by  a  fixed  stand- 
ard of  morality;  but  the  fact  that  he 
was  dissatisfied  with  himself,  while 
the  Pharisee  was  satisfied,  made  him 
the  more  beloved  by  God. 

We  know  for  an  absolute  fact  that 
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Evolution  and  Atonement 

we  are  not  as  good  as  we  might  be, 
and  that  with  more  faith  and  love  and 
courage  we  might  be  far  better  than 
we  are.  We  cannot  afford  to  neglect 
these  facts  of  experience,  because  we 
cannot  find  the  corresponding  bio- 
logical facts  which  would  explain 
them  scientifically. 

We  know  for  a  fact  of  experience 
that  confession  to  God,  combined 
with  prayer  for  help  and  faith,  enable 
us  to  overcome  sin.  We  know  for  a 
fact  that  if  Christ  had  never  died 
upon  the  cross  He  would  not  have 
the  power  to  help  us  that  He  has. 
We  know  for  a  fact  that,  however 
much  we  may  get  over  our  sin,  we 
cannot  undo  all  its  effects;  and  that, 
since  we  cannot  bear  the  whole 
burden  of  our  own  sins,  we  must,  if 
our  forgiveness  is  to  prevail,  help  to 
bear   the  burden   of   other   people's 

81 


Religion  and  Common  Sense 

sins.  We  may  not  be  able  to  say 
exactly  how  it  is  done;  but  we  do 
know  that  suffering  which  is  unde- 
served has  redemptive  power.  And 
if  this  fact  is  opposed  to  strict  justice, 
it  is  essential  to  brotherly  love  among 
men. 

It  is  facts  such  as  these — facts  of 
experience — that  are  the  most  im- 
portant and  the  surest  facts  in  life; 
and  it  is  on  them  that  our  religion 
must  be  built  up.  The  man  who  will 
not  believe  what  he  knows  from 
experience  to  be  true,  and  will  not 
attempt  wrhat  he  knows  in  his  heart 
to  be  right,  because  his  intellect 
cannot  find  the  exact  reason  why 
such  things  are  true  and  right,  is 
making  his  intellect  a  master  when 
it  wras  meant  to  be  a  servant.  He 
is  missing  freedom,  the  freedom  of 
the  spirit. 

82 


Date  Due 

<$> 

1    1012  01007  1563 


